HE IS RISEN!  THE WOUND OF DEATH IS VANQUISHED

By Dr. Eric C. Stumpf, Senior Pastor

St. Paul’s Ev. Lutheran Church – Munster, IN

12 April 2009 + The Resurrection of our Lord + John 20:11-16

            He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

            We often pass through doors to go from place to another.  You went through the door of your home, your car, this church to come here this morning.  We think little about it.

            However there is a door I want to tell you about that was far different.  Everyone in town knew about that door.  They would point to it with fear and whisper to their children about the door of death.  Those who passed through the doors never came out alive. 

Bess knew that door all too well.  She was arrested for high crimes.  Everyone who had been a friend denounced her.  Now her guard was taking her to that door known as Traitor’s Gate.  It is said when she saw it she became greatly agitated and refused to pass through the door, claiming she was no traitor.  She knew her death was upon her; indeed, her own mother has passed through the very same door 18 years earlier and she was executed beyond the door, the door of death.  Finally subdued she entered and was confined to a room.  Day after day she waited for the heavy knock on her door that would signal her last hour, her escort to the place of execution.  Then the day came, the knock on the door, and the announcement.  But instead of death, it was explained that a friend of her father pleaded her cause and won a reprieve!  Now Bess, later known as Queen Elizabeth I, walked through the same door, but now the other way, because someone saved her from death.

Death Was Changed

            No matter how many times you encounter it, it never feels natural, never feels right.  Death always seems wrong.  Even if the person was suffering terrible illness and was in pain, when death comes, you may at first be thankful that their burden is over, but then you are at loss for their voice, their eyes, the touch of their hand, their laugh.

            Mary did not accept death.  Of course she saw it.  She was there when the life went out of Jesus’ eyes as his head hung on the cross.  She saw the limp body, the nails being pulled out of his hands, which would have cause terrible pain in the living, but produced nothing now.

            Now she came for one last time to honor him, to finish the burial, to touch the hand, though cold.  But the body was gone.  She ran back to tell Peter and John.  Big help they were.  They raced to the tomb and simply confirmed the obvious, yes the body was gone, and then they left.  Alone, Mary could do only what a human can do in the face of death.  She wept.  Not gentle tears you dab with linen, but deep, gut-wrenching sobs from the depth of her heart.  Death wounds not just those it claims, but those who are left, and sometimes it wounds so badly that we think it will kill us.

            She went into the tomb one last time.  But something was different now.  Two forms in white, angels, sitting on the slab, like she perhaps would later be reminded what the Ark of the Covenant looked like.  “Woman, why are you weeping?”  She was passed the grief of death, now it was the grief of his body was taken and I don’t know where it is.  Death horrible enough, but now not able to tend it, give it last services, say our good-bye under our own time.

            Mary’s grief was so focused that the angels did not faze her.  She turns from the darkness of the tomb and faces the bright light of the dawning sun to see the outline of a figure near the door.  Gently he asks, Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you seeking?  Mary thinks, maybe this is the guy who works here in this garden, maybe he knows something.  She say, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”  Why could she not see?  Grief, tears, bright sunlight glaring off her tears, minds convinced that death wins every time? 

It all changed when Jesus said, Mary.  We remember, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. (John 10:27) The sound of her name so familiar to her ear from his mouth caught her.  She stared in terror, awe, unimagined joy.  “Rabboni,” my teacher, and she lunged for Jesus and fell as his feet and felt not an illusion or a wishful thought, but warm flesh and bone.  She saw the wounds still visible, but transfigured, shinning in glory.  Her Jesus.

Tears came again, not in sobs, but in joy.  The joy was just beginning as Jesus gives her an important task, to bear good news to Peter and John, to other disciples and friends, to be a living witness until the day she would join her Lord, knowing now the door of death was no longer what we feared, but changed forever by the Jesus who walked through it for us and came back out alive for us.  Alive and never to die again, Jesus’ promise to Mary, to His apostles, to all His baptized children, and to each and every one who hears the words of the Good Shepherd and follows him.

And now the same body and blood shed for you, raised to life everlasting, comes into your life through the bread and wine of Jesus covenant.  By his death and resurrection he has the full power and means to take our sins away.  Where sin only leaves death, Christ’s forgiveness gives life and life everlasting. 

Jesus gives us Good News.  “As death could not hold Me, so it will not hold you, My child.  Baptized into My undying life, I will bring you out of death just as I came out of it – alive, never to die again.  And then the celebration will really begin!”

Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

SDG